Ever find
yourself right smack dab in the middle of something immensely profound?
In one of those situations where everything in the universe just seems
to somehow fit together in this mega-precise and beautiful way? It happens
to me on occasion, but certainly not as much as I'd like.

The most
mind-blowing of these experiences came when my daughter was born. When
I first saw her face, it felt like all of eternity crammed itself into
that one tiny moment. It was pretty intense. Another experience was
in game 5 of the 1995 division series, with the Mariners beating the
Yankees in an unbelievable comeback. The energy surge in a stadium filled
with 65,000 screaming fans is certainly a beautiful thing. When I was
a kid, it happened all the time. Once, when I went over to Amanda Sprenger's**
house, who I was totally in love with, and drank apple cider and sat
in a dimly lit room and counted how much candy each of us had. (** name
changed, 'cause she probably never knew this!)

All this
stuff has the same feeling of having that first glimmer of aroused consciousness
when you wake up and realize it's Christmas morning! My goal in life
is to cruise through the later years of my existence in a constant state
of bliss like that. It's the ultimate cosmic groove.

I dig profound.
I crave it and seek it, but often find myself struggling to get there.
I fully believe that any single moment can crack you over the head with
crystal clear, sparkling wonder. The stuff is everywhere. It's learning
how to experience it that's the trick.

Where would
you look for profound, if you knew it was out there someplace? A lot
of folks find it at their neighborhood church. For me, my place of worship
is on a skateboard, carving down the sidewalk wrapped in nothing but
the raw experience of It All. That's the place that I have learned to
depend on, since it will take me to this experience of wonder time and
time again. It is meditation- simply being and simply adapting to whatever
my environment requests. It could have been any object that took me
here, had I studied it with the intensity that I've poured into studying
a board on wheels. If you look at it closely enough, every single thing
in the universe gives clues to the nature of god. So why not a skateboard?
I dig the fact that my god is a funky god.

It's the
groove that gets me. Seriously, I can't resist. You know how they say
you can hypnotize a chicken if you draw a line in the dirt in front
of it? You could hypnotize me with a good kickin' groove. I am probably
made up of some of the old energy of some ancient shaman or something,
who managed the drum circles on Friday nights around the campfire. Or
maybe my body is made up from the recycled atoms of a sexy disco machine,
and I was just born to boogie down. Possibly, it's that I've got no
rhythm at all, and that's why it's all so appealing. Ya know- maybe
it's a mix of all these things.

The coolest
thing about the universe is that it's knotted up in a total paradox.
It has to be that way, because if it weren't, there would actually be
things called "answers." But as far as I can tell, no one
has ever had an answer that couldn't be refuted by a total fool, a total
genius, or a good trial lawyer.

For precisely
this reason, things that are profound are usually disguised as simple
and/or stupid. They're called the basics. When you were 2 or 3 years
old, you were probably fascinated with them. But now, you just take
them for granted. Anything that doesn't require much thought gets a
pretty bad rap these days. We're supposed to worship reason and logic
like they are the ultimate achievement of humanity and the universe.
But if you ask me, those things are nothing more than interpretations
and translations of what the universe is really saying. When we interpret,
we lose some of the original meaning, When we translate, we lose even
more. And if you believe that the whole is always greater than the sum
of its parts, you can see that we've really lost a significant chunk
of meaning. And now you're probably wondering where I'm going with this.

When I
get on my skateboard, and get into a groove, and start carving up a
good little rhythm, I'm usually not thinking anything at all. I'm aware
and focused, but my mind is at a standstill. I've discovered that for
me, this is the quickest way to an experience that could be classified
as profound. I can't get there by thinking and trying to understand.
It's an experience, and the only way I can get there is by shutting
my mind off. That's an interesting thing. If you take that to it's natural
conclusion, the deepest, heaviest ideas that we are capable of comprehending
are made available to us not as concepts, but instead as experiences.

The best
thing is that this experience is not only meaningful when I'm in a skateboard
groove, but it preps me for regular life as well. Whether I am aware
of it or not, I am looking for those grooves when I step off the board
and go to work, or dance with the kids, or play wiffle ball in the backyard.
I apply the same principles I learn on the skateboard to my life. And
when it's all taken together, I find myself totally amped about all
the adventures that are on the verge of unfolding.